Friday, February 26, 2010

Summary #6

In the article "Family Guy and Freud: Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious" Antonia Peacocke describes how the jokes in Family Guy if looked at deeper than just face value actually have a more insightful meaning. Before going into this the author describes the hardships of the television show Family Guy, having been cancelled twice. She later uses this to show how "high profile" the show is by saying "Most importantly,each time it was cancelled fans provided the brute force necessary to get it back on the air." (261). She uses different numbers and awards to show how devoted the shows fans are and how well the show is actually doing. Peacocke talks about her own struggle with the shows seemingly offensive humor but then how she realizes the underlying "satire" of the jokes. The author uses different segments of the show to display how although the jokes are, at first glance, offensive the hidden meaning is simply "pointing out the weaknesses and defects of U.S. society in a mocking and sometimes intolerable way." (263). Antonia Peacocke uses excerpts from different authors to shape her argument, agreeing with some and pointing fun at others. She recognizes some of the steps taken due to the fact that the content of some of the jokes are not for younger ears. She ends her article explaining that although she feels that there is more to the jokes on Family Guy than the offensive crudity that people like to point out she still finds that people still need to realize that some jokes do go to far and take to heart "the distinction between a shamelessly candid but insightful joke and a merely shameless joke". (266).